AMENDING PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 79, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS, “THE REVISED POPULATION ACT OF THE PHILIPPINES”

WHEREAS, the Commission on Population created under
Presidential Decree No. 79, dated December 8, 1972, is governmental in
composition;

WHEREAS, the strength of the Government’s population program
requires the participation of private organizations and individuals in
the formulation and implementation of population planning policies; and

WHEREAS, such private organizations and individuals have
been very active in disseminating both services and information on
population control, in line with the Government’s own population
programs;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the
Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution as
Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and
pursuant to Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21, 1972, and General
Order No. 1, dated September 22, 1972, as amended, and in order to give
the private sector the opportunity to participate in the formulation
and implementation of the Government’s population program, do hereby
order and decree the amendment of Section 6 of Presidential Decree No.
79, to read as follows:

“SEC. 6. Board of Commissioners. — All functions
and powers of the POPCOM shall be vested in, and exercised by a Board of
Commissioners hereinafter referred to as the Board, composed of:
Secretary of Education and Culture, Secretary of Health, Secretary of
Social Welfare, Dean of the University of the Philippines Population
Institute, the Director General of the National Economic and Development
Authority, and two other members from the private sector who possess
the necessary expertise in the field of population planning and who are
not recipients of Population Commission program money, each to be
appointed by the President of the Philippines for a term of three
years.”

This Decree shall take effect immediately.

Done in the City
of Manila, this 31st day of March, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen
hundred and seventy-three.